Tuesday, November 13, 2012

BBC's 30 "experts" who decided in 2006 that balance on AGW wasn't needed

The British Broadcast Corporation is legally obliged to be impartial. However, at one point, the BBC Trust has boldly informed the public that after a seminar held on January 26th, 2006, the public news organization has decided that no balance was needed in climate reporting anymore and the organization would continue to spread the demagogy of the unhinged climate alarmists only.

The organization would insist that the decision was made by a few dozens of top invited scientific experts and it would use every trick to hide the identity of these "experts". Indeed, last Friday, a judge decided that the BBC wasn't obliged to reveal the identity of its "experts" so blogger Tony Newbery, the plaintiff, lost.

I would like to invite the TRF readers to some simple research – and find out some fair description of all the "experts" in the list and something about their scientific credentials and impartiality. To me, the list looks like a collection of NGO activists, lobbyists, and representatives financially motivated green industry groups.

If you present some evidence and links in the comments and an alternative description of the "specialists", I will update this article. I have already chaotically changed the ordering of the list so that the "more scientific" beginning doesn't make a wrong impression. But building on similar lists of "experts" when decisions about trillions of dollars are being made is rather extraordinary, isn't it?

About the only one I've heard of is Robert May, former president of the Royal Society, famous for chaotic population dynamical models (pretty easy maths stuff actually that you could teach at high school) and typical left-wing atheist, who clearly isn't going to be balanced (in both senses) in his opinions on climate science

Cheryl Campbell was most probably at the BBC conference to make up her mind about environmentalissues. One pressing line of questioning could have been "does it make sense to even try talking to man-boys? Can they really be taught anything worthwhile at all?"From the TVE.org website:

“We inspire viewers to lead a greener life, entrepreneurs and corporations to take up the sustainability challenge, parents to educate their daughters as well as their sons, women to stand up for greater empowerment, and decision-makers to think, and act, differently.” ...and to toe the green-calamity-scare-you-out-of-your-wits-repent-before-it's-too-late-sinners party line.

The BBC aren't reporting this leak at the moment, I wonder if it's related to the recent dismissals over the false paedophilia accusations - since, as Maurizio Morabito points out (<a href="http://omnologos.com/why-the-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-jan-2006-seminar-is-important/>here</a>) the four recently shamed and dismissed/resigned were present at the climate seminar (Peter Rippon, Steve Mitchell, Helen Boaden, George Enwistle)

To connect pedophilia and climate science is as unsupported as a causal link between climate change and second hand smoke. While I too thought of it too and would like to think it so, these self proclaimed experts and media moguls are correlated only to making money without regard to facts. I have no knowledge of the people on the list, would not matter if they included the greatest and most noble on the planet. The fact is that climate science is an oxymoron.

Interesting list. Right now, it seems that even most entries from more or less prestigious universities and research institutions only have a somewhat circumstantial relationship with actual climate science/climate physics:

Steve Widdicombe (22 on the list) is a marine ecologist focusing on biodiversity, see: http://www.pml.ac.uk/about_us/pml_people/steve_widdicombe.aspx

Joe Smith (No. 23) is a lecturer and has a PhD in Geography, but seems solidly in the social science corner of that subject (obtained a BA in Social and Political Sciences first). Regarding his lines of research, he mentions "a long running strand of work on media decision-making and environment (1996-)", which, for better or worse, at least makes his presence in such a meeting somewhat understandable. See: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/people-profile.php?name=Joe_Smith

Poshendra Satyal Pravat (No. 24) is also a Geography PhD, and, like Smith, also seems to be in the social science corner, with work "at the interface between research and policy on the distributional and equity impacts of climate change mitigation, with a particular focus on i) public perceptions of, and attitudes towards, environmental rights, responsibilities and the concepts of environmental and climate justice in the context of climate change mitigation; and ii) the societal and equality impacts of climate change mitigation proposals, policies and plans". http://carboncentre.org/carbonCMS/about-us/dr-poshendra-s

Dorthe Dahl-Jensen (No. 27) appears to be the first actual climate scientist on the list (though I haven't checked the credentials of anyone not mentioned in this comment, because it didn't seem to likely for anyone else). She has an education in Geophysics and has co-authored papers with several hundred citations, see: http://www.nbi.ku.dk/ansatte/?id=45103&f=2&vis=medarbejder and http://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=de&q=Dorthe+Dahl-Jensen&btnG=&lr=

Michael Bravo (No. 28) has an MPhil and PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science. The most natural sciencey thing he has ever done is getting a bachelor's degree in Telecommunications Engineering in 1985. http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/people/bravo/

No. 29 Robert May is a theoretical physicist by training, but seems to have worked in theoretical biology/zoology since the 1970s. He has been president of the Royal Society from 2000-2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_May,_Baron_May_of_Oxford

With a PhD in Applied Climatology (BSc in Geography), Mike Hulme (No. 30) is, as far as I can tell (see above), the second genuine climate scientist on this list, also with publications with several hundreds (and twice more than 1300) of citations, see http://mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/2012-CV-Hulme-short.pdf and http://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=Mike+Hulme&btnG=&hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5

Still, the representation of such people on this list seems astonishingly low. Actually, unnecessarily low, for if the BBC wanted its expert comittee to come to this result from the very beginning, they could still have found many more natural and climate scientists who would have supported their foregone conclusion. The frightening explanation might be (I don't know) that editorial decisions on science are routinely made with very limited input from actual scientists working in the relevant fields.